The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel by Margaret A. Oppenheimer

Author:Margaret A. Oppenheimer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2016-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

In the meantime her tussle with Stephen’s relatives went on. Thanks to continued stalling on her part, including an unsuccessful appeal of the decision that barred her from discharging the mortgage held by Berger using monies from the estate, it was not until October 1839—more than seven years after Stephen’s death—that Eliza paid half of his net assets to François and Madelaine. Each received just over five thousand dollars, a sum roughly equivalent to $129,000 today.9

Strictly speaking, the inheritance arrived too late for François, who had died in April. His share went to his son, Ulysses, who, with Madelaine, continued to fight for more. The two launched an attempt to claim the Jumel lands that Eliza had put in trust for herself.10 Taking aim at the questionable conveyances used to establish the trust, they argued that she had defrauded Stephen and his heirs. Her husband had failed to challenge her, they claimed, only because intemperance and “weakness and imbecility of mind” had overcome him “during the latter part of his residence in France.”11 Their suit failed, however. There was insufficient evidence of fraud.12

At the same time Eliza was sued by Felicie and her husband, Joseph Benjamin Texoeres, for the fifteen thousand francs (three thousand dollars) that Stephen had promised them in their marriage contract.13 The money should have been paid within a year of his death, but Eliza had ignored the obligation. Once more she triumphed. Most of the money in the estate had been distributed by the time the couple made their claim. Madelaine and Ulysses would be obliged to pay 50 percent of the sum out of their share of the estate, and Eliza negotiated a clever compromise for her half. She would leave Felicie the sum in her will.14

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